Stay away from Pantaenius Yacht Insurance Why? read below..

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Capt Gill

You almost got me on that one, "our davits cracked", then I realized you're probably trolling to see who would think that it's a reasonable claim - subtle you are.

As I understand it.... if the failure of the davits caused the mast to fall down.... they would pay for a new mast... but not for the mechanical failure of the davits....

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Sojourner

Maybe I'm particularly dense this morning, but I don't get it.... the OP's boat was hit by a poorly maintained other boat. The OP's insurance is Pantaenius and is refusing to pay for damages? Or is Pantaenius the negligent boat's insurance?

I went with Pantaenius here in the EU after glowing reviews by the old owner of my boat.... haven't had to test it yet thankfully

The OP hasn't given any details of his issue with Pantaenius.

You may be confusing the OP with post #15 where another poster has given some details with his compliant about Pantaenius.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Puzzling? You bet! And the fact that it is generally accepted as a reasonable means of denying accountability is scary to me.

Yes.

And this brings me to an interesting observation. It appears that people happy with their insurance often do not live in the US. So maybe the main issue is that the US does not have a good legal infrastructure...

[TheThunderbird]

Some censorship on misleading/inappropriate headings is welcome on CF.

How can we get insured from this??

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

And this brings me to an interesting observation. It appears that people happy with their insurance often do not live in the US. So maybe the main issue is that the US does not have a good legal infrastructure...

I am not sure how accurate this chart is but it is known that the U.S. has far more attorneys per capita than other countries. If you have the misfortune of watching TV in the U.S. you'll see all of the commercials for lawyers. In many cases they even advertise that you don't owe anything since all fees will come out of any settlements. If there is no settlement you walk away owing nothing, so why not give it a shot?

I wouldn't say that we have a bad legal system but I would agree that it is abused horribly.

[robert sailor]

It's just a little story but we were in St. Maartin just after a hurricane several years ago and the locals were busy with lots of work. I was getting a new engine installed and the company doing the work had lots of insurance work from wrecked boats. Just as an aside I was talking to the owner about insurance companies and his experience. I had just changed from Pantaenius USA to Dolphin in Canada. He started to laugh and he said that Pantaenius eventually pays but usually 6 months after the work is done and the owners have to bridge it while waiting. He said, oh I help out the owners as best I can by pre billing the company so that they don't have to bridge it quite so long.
So he says, the reason I laughed was that I had never dealt with Dolphin in Canada and I did my normal pre billing game expecting they were similar to some USA companies so I almost fell down when less than 10 days later they sent me a cheque. He said I put all my men on that boat for a solid week trying to catch up as I was scared that their adjuster just might drop in for a visit.

[Woodland Hills]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Maybe your problem is living in a country where an "act of god" is actually a thing...

This!!!

[thinwater]

a. If insurance does not cover carelessness it is not much good. Gross negligence is a different matter. The latter implies that you either knew or were responsible for knowing.

b. If it was an act of god, your insurance should cover it. It is being blamed on nature rather than a person, which should still be covered, but not by the same party. If your insurance excludes acts of god... pretty useless. If it were home or vehicle insurance, I believe it is illegal in most states to offer such insurance. Boats I can't say.

I wonder if the OP does not understand insurance.

(I've used State Farm an Liberty Mutual and never had a problem with any claim. All of the boat or house claims were acts of god.)

[SV Bacchus]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

And this brings me to an interesting observation. It appears that people happy with their insurance often do not live in the US. So maybe the main issue is that the US does not have a good legal infrastructure...

Not taking anything away from KVB, seems accurate but wanted to add my own:

My observation, and it really isn't an observation just a WAG, is that possibly the people happiest with their insurance company are people who have never made a claim.

[boatman61]

Damn.. and there was I thinking everything was an Act of God/Allah/Krishna/Flubbalub..
I would not be here were if not for him putting my Mom into my Dads life..h
The sperm and the egg were just for special effects..
Aint propoganda amazing..

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by thinwater

a. If insurance does not cover carelessness it is not much good. Gross negligence is a different matter. The latter implies that you either knew or were responsible for knowing.

b. If it was an act of god, your insurance should cover it. It is being blamed on nature rather than a person, which should still be covered, but not by the same party. If your insurance excludes acts of god... pretty useless. If it were home or vehicle insurance, I believe it is illegal in most states to offer such insurance. Boats I can't say.

I wonder if the OP does not understand insurance.

(I've used State Farm an Liberty Mutual and never had a problem with any claim. All of the boat or house claims were acts of god.)

on your (a.).
I was just about to write the same response. Good thing I kept reading. Most accidents are attributable to some form of careless operator behaviour. This is not the same a gross negligence. If insurance didn’t cover these kinds of events, then no one would ever see anything from any insurance policy, and insurance would be almost valueless.

As I understand it, t he “act of god” thing is slightly more complicated in insurance. Most countries don’t use those terms anymore, but in general it refers to an unforeseeable catastrophic event like an earthquake or flood. In Canada these are part of the 'specific perils' which can be covered, or not covered.

I can’t see how lines snapping on a neighbours boat, and then causing damage to mine, could be considered an “act of god”. Assuming the neighbour’s insurance included liability, there should be no question about them paying for my damage. They may not pay for my neighbour’s damage since they might claim gross negligence on his/her part.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SV Bacchus

...My observation, and it really isn't an observation just a WAG, is that possibly the people happiest with their insurance company are people who have never made a claim.

I conducted an insurance survey here on CF (and on SN) last year. The vast majority of people had never made a claim.

http://helplink.com/CLAFC/wp-content...nce-report.pdf

[Shrew]

In the OP's shoes, I would take the following actions, in order:

1) Contact my insurance agent. Start the process with my own insurance company. Let the agent work with my own company's underwriters and claims departments.

Your insurance company should treat it similar to an uninsured driver, then go after the Pantaenius to recover their money. (IF no agent, contact your insurance company directly).

IF I had no insurance or Liability-only then....

2) Submit an appeal to Pantaenius. These denials can be appealed. You may be pleasantly surprised. They might offer 50%, they might agree to pay out. You may need to go through several appeals.

IF appeals still fail, then....

3) (I hate this route) sue the owner of the vessel directly.

[JohnHutchins]

It's not easy to say anything valuable without having seen any of the policies of details of the claims at issue but there is definetely some confusion about insurance on this thread that can maybe be reduced if it's discussed in a more orderly way.

First a policy can be broken into two parts -- the loss part and the liability part. The loss part is an agreement between you and your insurance company that the company will pay you if you suffer loss as a result of the occurrence of some defined class of event causing loss. In exchange you agree to pay the insurer the required premium. But not every policy is the same and less expressive policies include more exclusions -- things not covered by the policy. Read your exclusions, think about how comfortable you are with them. If you are not comfortable with an exclusion talk to your insurer about what it would cost to get a policy without the exclusion. If that's not satisfactory, talk to another insurer.

The other part is the liability part. It is also an agreement between you and the insurer that the insurer will pay claims against you but third parties for losses sustained by you for which you are legally liable.

It is the second category, I think, that post #15 is discussing and the post implies that the insurer concluded that the accident was not one for which its insured boater was legally liable. Poster#15 disagreed and he could have sued the owner of the other vessel and had a court determine where the liability fell and had the court determined that the owner of the other vessel was in fact liable then the insurer would probably cough up unless there is an exclusion on the liability side -- that is, unless the insurer never agreed to cover the owner for that category of liability or the amount is beyond the policy limits. The act of God language, though, suggests to me that this wasn't a policy exclusion but the insurer's conclusion that had the owner of the boat in post#15 sued the owner of the boat that broke free then, under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the accident happened, the owner of the boat that broke free would have won.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Tetepare

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>These days the standard response is to avoid a payout. Get used to it.

There is the "fight back" approach, too. Perhaps those of us with good companies can post them.

I have had good experiences with BoatUS, although before they were Geico.

I have heard good things about Hub here in Canada from a good friend who has done all the "legwork" required between coverages, prices and experiences. I will be contacting them soon, because my premiums with BoatUS went way up after I moved from N. California -- more $$ for a smaller sailing area.

The intense deregulation of just about everything by the Americans should be a wake up call, since it impacts many facets of life, including breathing, clean water, your retirement funds and insurance. "Eliminating those pesky regulations" simply means someone is removing your protections.

Big difference.